Mars colony project 2023: Astronaut recruitment to begin in July

Mars
colony project 2023 seems to be on track as astronauts’ recruitment set
to begin in July. Mars One, a non- profit organization that had once
made headlines by announcing in 2010 that they have plans to found the
first off planet colony on Mars by 2023. The Dutch Space travel agency
is planning to land four astronauts on the Red Planet in 2023 and is
expected to start searching astronauts for the project by this summer.

The
company, based in Netherlands, has announced that it will accept
application videos during the summer in between now and July this year
and anyone over the age of 18 is eligible to apply. The company,
however, is charging $25 (depending on applicant’s location) to persuade
against candidates who are not serious about the project. The entry fee
is expected to fund the company with millions of dollars.

“We
expect a million applications with 1-minute videos, and hopefully some
of those videos will go viral,” co-founder and chief executive officer
of Mars One, Bas Lansdorp told SPACE.com on April 10. He was there in
London on that day to speak to the British Interplanetary Society (BIS).

The
company claimed that it already has 45,000 people on their mailing list
and has received more than 10,000 emails from people interested in
going to Mars. The company said that they hope to have 24 astronauts,
organized into six teams of four people by the end of July 2015. Then
the selected four teams will under go seven years of training including
three months of stay in a replica of the Mars colony.

“We will give them all the most stressful situations,” Lansdorp said at the British Interplanetary Society.

The
training will also include a 40-minute communications delay to
replicate the time lag between Earth and Mars due to the distance.

“We
will always have about 10 groups [of four] in training, so if one group
drops out, there will be replacement crews,” said Lansdorp.

Mars
One calculates approximately that they need $6 billion to carry out the
project of sending first four astronauts to Mars. This money will be
used for developing the landing systems, habitats, Mars Transit Vehicle
(MTV), rovers, solar arrays and other technologies related to the
colony, along with the expenditure of the crew’s journey from Earth.

The
company plans to set up a realty show to choose candidates who get to
go to Mars with the help of voting system. The audience of the show will
choose the candidate from among the pool of contestants chosen by the
Mars One’s experts.

“We
can prove to the broadcasters that there is real demand and interest,
and we will start negotiations after the [astronaut] selection procedure
begins,” Lansdorp said.

The
company has announced the travel date to Mars to be on April 24th, 2023
and the company however, claimed that it will be a one way trip to Mars
and once gone will not find any way to return back to Earth.